Women's Track and Field Continues to Shine at All-New England Championship

BOSTON, Mass. &ndash; One week after capturing the Division III New England Championship, the MIT women&rsquo;s track and field team picked up right where it left off, competing at the All-New England Championship at Boston University over the weekend. Five Engineers reached or improved their NCAA qualifying marks as the team finished 15th out of 33 teams from across all NCAA divisions.

Portia Jones led the way for the Cardinal and Grey, who are currently ranked 15th nationally. The freshman broke a pair of her own Institute records in the 200 and 400 meters. Her time of 56.77 in the 400 meters was good for sixth in the meet and is currently the third best time in the country. Jones followed that performance up by shattering her own record in the 200m (25.56) by over half a second. Martha Gross was also impressive in the 400, finishing in 59.88, a new personal record and the second best time in MIT history.

Andrea Bradshaw once again bettered her school-record in the 800 finishing in 2:15.00 in the preliminaries to qualify for the finals, before finishing ninth overall.

In the pole vault, Emily Hwang cleared 12-6 feet to break the previous MIT record by over seven inches as well as qualify automatically for the NCAA Championship.

Hazel Briner was back in action in the pentathlon, looking to improve upon her Institute record point total sent at last week&rsquo;s Division III New England Championship. After setting a new personal-record in the 55m hurdles (8.88), Briner ran a solid 800 (2:26.99) to finish with 3106 points, good for third place overall. That total places Briner 11th nationally heading into next weekend&rsquo;s ECAC Championship.

MIT accumulated 24 points to place 15th overall and second among Division III squads. Connecticut took home the top spot with 186.50 points.

Tech will take part in next weekend&rsquo;s ECAC Division III Championship hosted by Tufts University on Friday and Saturday.